


Impermanence

by lightningwaltz



Category: The Borgias
Genre: Gen, angsty angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-28
Updated: 2012-03-28
Packaged: 2017-11-02 15:07:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/370327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightningwaltz/pseuds/lightningwaltz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The end will come</p>
            </blockquote>





	Impermanence

**Author's Note:**

> I wound up rather attached to Alfonso, in all his crazy arrogance and insecurity. This is a drabble I wrote to get into his head. I suspect I'll write more from his POV in the future.

Alfonso is nothing like his father. Not in any of the ways that it counts. Not in the way the princes of Christendom ultimately respect.

One day, some catastrophe will reveal Alfonso’s inherent weakness. King Ferrante had predicted it once, before his mind fled completely. 

Until then he presents a terribly affable face during matters of state. He giggles and snickers during executions, knowing full well he must resemble an overgrown child. Better to be erratic rather than pathetic. Over time he finds himself growing easily into his public mask. Sometimes peal of laughter disguise an exhalation of relief. Hides the way his hands can shake. The blood that stains the floor adds up to one more adversary felled, one more year of independence for his kingdom, a few more moments in which Alfonso gets to survive. 

And, yes, it’s true. It’s absolutely _hysterical_ that God has seen fit to invest so much power in someone so unsuited. When he’s not disguising his own cowardice, his laughter is still loud, wholly genuine, and laced with barbaric mirth. No one can see that Naples’ sovereignty is as much a pretense as Ferrante’s mockery of the last supper. No one can see that their self-rule is as doomed as the enemies Alfonso’s father’s once fed to the crocodiles. 

Sancia had once said to him that nothing is truly permanent. That the waves outside will one day gobble up the shore and palace, just as surely as Europe will gobble up Naples.

And Because Alfonso is not his father, because he lacks the inherent cruelty and bloodlust, he will lose this fight. He will be dead long before his home topples into the sea.


End file.
